The latest exhibition at Mirfield’s Creative Arts Hub showcases the work of Greek artist Lazaros Kaligirou, and explores the inner world through spontaneous drawing.

Leeds-based artist Lazaros was born in 1980 in the greek town of Ioannina, and is half-Cypriot. Lazaros’s first contact with art was in the local artistic workshop, where he became a student of the well-known Greek artist Eleni Botsiou. He studied Painting in the School of Fine Arts of Athens, in the workshop of professor Anastasios Christakis, and graduated in September 2005. As well as working on his art pieces for exhibition, multi-talented Lazaros also illustrates books and occupies himself from time to time by composing music pieces.

Speaking about his art practice, Lazaros reflects: “I’ve been drawing and painting my whole life, so it’s my natural way of life to express my being through artistic creation.”

“My process is very simple and basic really. I absorb observe and absorb the world around me, which to me is the reflection of my inner existence and then at the right moment, let the expressing of the personal universe inside flow outwards, which takes its form according to the necessity of the moment. What really matters to me is to be truthful to myself. Then I can be truthful to the world around me and thus, share my unique point of view and personal journey.”

“At the moment, I’m working on improvised, technical, pen & ink drawings with organic form tendencies, which I call expansions. I also create paintings, using oils and acrylics”.

Mark Milnes, Director of Creative Arts Hub, is looking forward to the new exhibition: “Laz’s work is very different to any of the that work we’ve shown recently. I can’t recollect a drawing exhibition at the Hub for at least four years, so it’ll be really good to have one again. Lazaros’s work is spontaneous and playful, but conversely very controlled and careful in its execution. It’s lovely stuff, and I’m certain our visitors will find much to enjoy!”

There will be an exhibition launch on Friday 14th September from 6pm to 8pm, when you can enjoy refreshments and meet the artist. All are welcome to attend. The Hub is open from 10am to 5pm Wednesday to Friday, and 10am to 3pm on Saturday; the exhibition runs from Friday 14th September until 27th October 2018. Contact the gallery at info@creativeartshub.org.uk or on 01924 492775 for further details.

Mirfield Miniatures is a new wargaming collector’s centre based at the Creative Arts Hub art gallery – in the former Vale Cinema building in central Mirfield. Consisting of several display cabinets and an assembly/painting studio, Mirfield Miniatures specialises in fantasy and science fiction miniatures as well as historical gaming figures. Other basic modelling supplies such as glues, modelling putty and scenery basics are also available.

The modelling shop has developed as an extension of the many creative activities and workshops which the Hub delivers. “We’ve simply found that our audience, the children who have been attending our weekly workshops, have grown up with us and are ready for this”, says Hub director Mark Milnes. “I used to paint these figures nearly three decades ago, and made regular cash by painting armies for other people. It’s been a long time, and I’d forgotten what an absorbing and relaxing activity it is to paint one of these miniatures.” The figures are only an inch or so high, and are used in popular battle games such as Warhammer.

“The miniatures that we sell are largely pre-owned figures, and are either entirely unpainted or have been stripped ready for painting. We offer them at pocket-money prices, affordable to give the opportunity for young collectors to build a range of miniatures without breaking the bank. All of this fits nicely with our recycle and re-use ethic, and with our mission to support creative learning – and of course supports all of the community activity that we run here.” The Hub has also started to periodically run workshops and courses to teach the art of miniature painting and scenery building, and is just coming to the end of its first six week run. “We’re very interested to hear from any young artists who might want to have a go at this highly detailed, skillful form of painting. We’d also be keen to run a gaming club, so if anyone out there would like to take part we’d love for them to get in touch.”

The Hub is open from 10am to 5pm Wednesday to Friday, and 10am to 3pm on Saturday. Mark is happy to open the miniatures store out-of -hours and prospective visitors should contact him at mark@creativeartshub.org.uk or on 01924 492775.

Join us this Friday – 9th March – from 6pm to 8pm, for this new exhibition by Huddersfield-based artist Mariel Borst Pauwels. Her paintings explore the fringes of modern life; fragments of CCTV footage or discarded photos re-interpreted, translated by the simple action of applying paint to a surface; the mundane and everyday placed on the transformative pedestal of Art (with a capital ‘A’).

Mariel is a visual artist and painter with an interest in the economic, political and social aspects of everyday life. Originally from The Netherlands she has lived and worked in in the Holme Valley since 2000. She studied at Bradford College of Art and gained a BA in Fine Art in 2014 and an MA in Visual Arts in 2017.

Mariel often uses found materials such as scrap metal, wood and leftover household paints, as well as more traditional materials such as as oil and acrylic paint, transfers and collage. The main subject matter for her work is public spaces such as supermarkets, motorways, multi storey car parks and also spaces we access online. These anonymous places are known as ‘non-places’ (Augé, 1995) ; they have no anthropological history and ordinary human relationships don’t exist here. The feeling of alienation and noticing alienating aspects that these places provoke is what informs much of Mariel’s work. She uses her own and found photographs and lets the process of painting and the properties of the used materials lead the way. Digital photography means that there is now a wealth of (accidental) images accessible to anyone, such as CCTV images and images from Google Earth. They can be grainy, stripy and monochrome, with distortions such as bent lines. These distortions and a lack of detail and colour contribute to the ambiguity of the produced paintings. The scale and the material of the paintings will reframe the original images and change their context. For example CCTV footage was produced to inform, but the paintings will have lost that function. The paintings freeze small and seemingly insignificant fragments of everyday life. The mundane and overlooked have gained importance.

… pick up a hard copy from Creative Arts Hub or Batley Art Gallery, and other venues shortly. Next up at Batley Art Gallery is the Dewsbury Arts Group Spring Exhibition, and at the Hub we have a solo exhibition by Mariel Borst Pauwels launching in early March.

We’d like to thank everyone who has supported us through the past 12 months. It’s been an interesting year, for sure; with a real mix of challenges, offset by many rewarding experiences. Having established our Creative Café in the last quarter of the year, we also saw our regular Saturday and Thursday art clubs strengthen and grow, with many Arts Awards achieved. This especially satisfying conclusion to the year gives us a really positive feeling about 2018! We hope you’ll all continue to enjoy spending time here at the Hub, and we aim to keep things interesting with a range of new activities for you to sample at our forthcoming sessions.

The fee for the 5 week DAY course is £180.00, and for the 10 week EVENING course is £200.00 (cheques made payable to Julia Borodina or you can pay by BACS giving your name as reference to: Account Number: 55161661 Sort Code: 09-01-28). To give us some idea of interest and to reserve your place, could you please email Julia@juliaborodina.co.uk by the 5th January. On receipt of your booking and payment, we will send you a confirmation of your place and full details of the programme. Please book early to reserve your place.

Our next exhibition by artist Peter Robson, which launches on Friday 1st December (6pm to 8pm) – we hope that you’ll be able to join us.

Peter Robson’s ‘Unobtania’ presents politically driven events in order to provoke questions about those in power or indeed those that have grabbed power. “For many years I have been involved in social issues and I consider myself an activist. I have never tried to separate this from my art, and indeed, it clearly informs my work. I believe that the artist has an absolute responsibility to represent what is happening in the world.”

The exhibition runs until 27th January; please be aware that the gallery will be subject to seasonal closing in line with the Kirklees library service.

Enter our ‘Terrifying Teddies’ competition and win an arty prize! We’d like you to pop in during opening hours and collect a teddy – they’re lovely and cuddly but we’d like you to get them ready for Halloween. DO YOUR WORST!! … stitch and sew, use glue and paint; we’d like to see you create your very own Frankenstein’s Monster, zombie or vampire. Return the teddy to us by 21st October and we’ll pop it on display in time for the Halloween half term. Winners will be announced on 28th October, after which you’re welcome to pop back in to collect your teddy.

We have limited stocks of teddy bears – some plain, some with names on their bellies. Once the teddies have run out, there’ll be no more. Drop Mark an email at mark@creativeartshub.org.uk if you’d like one reserving for collection later.

For those who might be wondering, just a short message to clarify that our Saturday and Thursday Art Clubs start again this week 🙂

Saturdays sessions run from 10am to 12pm and 1pm to 3pm (£6 per child); tomorrow (Thursday) evening’s session will run from 5.30 to 8pm, with 5.30 to 6.30pm reserved for Arts Award work (£2) and 6.30 to 8pm for Art Social (£5). We look forward to seeing you all back at the Hub!